Surrey gun violence on decline, despite second shooting of 2019

Jesse Day / January 10th, 2019

A 17-year-old boy is in serious condition after being shot outside a townhouse complex, near Prince Charles Boulevard and 96th Avenue, in Surrey. Police say they responded to the reports of the shooting late last night.

We’re ten days into 2019 and this marks the second shooting in Surrey of the year. But shootings in Surrey are actually less common than they were four years ago, according to Surrey RCMP.

“The number of shots fired in Surrey has been decreasing since 2015. Surrey RCMP continue to make gang related shootings and violence a constant priority and hope to see this trend continue.” – Sargent Chad Greig, Surrey RCMP

Will gun violence in Surrey continue to drop in 2019?

*2018 homicide and attempted murder stats are still being updated

With Surrey shootings on a 56% percent overall decline from 2015, Surrey RCMP have promised to continue to combat shootings and gang-related violence. They say it’s their goal to continue this trend of decreasing gun violence into 2019.

Despite the steady decline, SFU Associate Criminology Professor, Ryan Kinney says the trend continuing into 2019 is not guaranteed as gun violence is often sporadic and hard to predict.

“Shots fired are extraordinarily high on people’s fear of crime and concerns about safety. Gun-play is fairly chaotic and sort of happens in spurts. The jumping up and down of these data and the things we know about is not something we can really control.” – Bryan Kinney, SFU Associate Criminology Professor

Kinney says the fact that gun violence stats are going down isn’t a huge surprise, but he thinks that most people would be shocked to learn this. Kinney attributes the popular opinion that gun violence is on the rise to the public’s demand for these types of stories in the media.

“It’s not just (media) with the ‘if it bleeds it leads’ bumper sticker. There’s also a public demand, it’s what people are wanting to hear about. It’s a loop.” – Bryan Kinney, SFU Associate Criminology Professor

On Tuesday night, when police arrived at the scene of the shooting outside the townhouse complex in Surrey, they found evidence of a car crash between a Jeep and a Toyota Sienna as well as evidence of shots fired. Investigators believe shots were fired from one vehicle to another after they crashed into each other. Reports say, both drivers fled the scene after the collision.

Reports say, the victim was the passenger of the Toyota Sienna and that he was taken to hospital by the driver of the vehicle. The 17-year-old victim remains in hospital with serious, but non-life-threatening, injuries.

Soon after the incident, police located the driver of the Jeep in Metro Vancouver and took the suspect into custody.

According to Surrey RCMP, the victim was likely targeted by the alleged shooter but they don’t see the late-night gunfire as being a gang-related incident.